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During school holidays children in India are traditionally looked after close to home and at minimal cost. It’s one advantage of living in an extended family with a never-ending supply of aunties, eager to spend a day pinching the cheeks of your children and keeping them well fed.

But as the country develops, that seems to be changing. Parents are increasingly keen to get their children out of the house and into productive activities. India’s summer camp industry is expected to be worth Rs10bn ($179.9m) by the 2017-2018 year, up from Rs4bn today, according to Assocham, the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India. Continue reading »

The troubled Hong Kong Mercantile Exchange looks unlikely to be back in business any time soon. With regulators and the Hong Kong police opening separate investigations – followed quickly by three arrests on Tuesday night – the fledgling futures exchange may have done itself irreparable damage. Hong Kong’s financial sector will be very keen indeed to ensure the damage is restricted to HKMEx itself. Continue reading »

Ghana’s central bank sprung a surprise on Wednesday by raising its policy rate from 15 per cent to 16 per cent, stepping up its efforts to halt the decline of the cedi.

Central Bank Governor Henry Kofi Wampah noted risks to economic growth arising in part from tightened credit, but decided the weakening of the currency was the bigger threat. Continue reading »

* China’s bird flu outbreak cost $6.5bn

* India takes steps to rein in algos

* Beijing promises to get tough on heath food industry Continue reading »

It’s tempting to think that the Hong Kong IPO market is finally back to good health. Two $1bn+ deals have been completed in the past few days and on Wednesday, one of them shot up on its debut.

But don’t pop the champagne just yet. While the deals got done, they did so with a lot of legwork. And its too early to tell whether they will ultimately offer much reward for investors. Continue reading »

The China Food and Drug Administration has promised to get tough on health foods before, with little result. This time, it seems, it is serious.

The recently-reformed CFDA has promised a five-month campaign from May to September to crack down on illegal activity in the health food industry, part of a broader drive by authorities to stamp out corruption and unethical business practices. Continue reading »

Wednesday’s picks from beyondbrics: the Chinese government struggles to cool the property market; Indian exporters lack a foothold in China; the Tunisian government changes tack on Salafism; a special report on Poland, the EU’s best performing economy; plus, diverging inequality in Latin America and the US. Continue reading »

Algos – those complicated and increasing popular beasts – have proved a headache for financial regulators the world over.

India’s financial market regulator is trying to bring them further under control. As of May 27, algorithmic trading systems in the country will be audited every six months and stock exchanges will have powers to suspend and penalise traders who don’t take action to ensure their systems comply with requirements. Continue reading »

* Indonesia approves DBS acquisition of 40% of Bank Danamon
* Strong demand in China helps boost Burberry sales to £2bn
* China reveals details of first carbon trading scheme

Carlos Slim is always on the move: reviewing, restructuring and reinventing his companies.

His latest action in this direction came on Tuesday with his industrial conglomerate, Grupo Carso, exiting its investment in Philip Morris México (PMM). Carso agreed to sell its remaining 20 per cent stake for $700m to Philip Morris International (PMI), which becomes sole owner of PMM.

Continue reading »

If there is a slowdown in Brazil, George Fertitta is not seeing it.

As the head of NYC & Company, New York City’s official tourism board, Fertitta has witnessed the meteoric rise of Brazilian visitors to the Big Apple. Last year, Brazil became the second most important overseas market for the city after the UK: 826,000 Brazilians came to visit, compared with 112,000 in 2006.

“We have never seen anything like it,” said Fertitta. “We have had big surges in visitors from Ireland but the surge from Brazil is unique in scale.” Continue reading »

By Andrew Rosati in Caracas

For a country where consumers are often hard-pressed to find staples like milk or toilet paper, Venezuela certainly has no shortage of scandals. After last month’s accusations of electoral fraud and a saloon-style brawl in congress, now Mario Silva, a TV talk show host, rabble-rouser and the best journalist in Venezuela – according to the late president, Hugo Chávez – has fallen into the fray.

In an extraordinary hour-long recording of what opposition politicians say is a conversation between Silva and a top Cuban intelligence official, the chavista broadcaster delivers a laundry list of backbiting and corruption at the highest levels of chavismo. Venezuelans are wondering what will come next. Continue reading »

The Warsaw Stock Exchange is tightening the screws on its often-unruly younger sibling, the New Connect alternative market for small companies, by halting trading in 14 companies that failed to file their quarterly reports on time.

The earliest the 14 can return to the trading floor is Thursday – if they get their paperwork in no later than the end of Tuesday. Continue reading »

By Erik Berglof of the EBRD

The latest forecasts show that central Asia and the Caucasus are again the fastest-growing economies in the former Communist countries of eastern Europe and the ex-Soviet Union.

Yet, given the low level of income and relatively high population growth of these countries, the numbers are disappointing. On closer inspection growth is also narrow, mainly stemming from natural resources and remittances from citizens working abroad; countries less endowed with resources are doing worse. Economic reforms are mostly stuck, as are, with a few exceptions, political reform. Continue reading »

Russia the next Greece? It sounds like a long shot. But Russia the next Greece as the subject of a report from an investment bank that specialises in marketing Russian assets? That sounds like a shot in the foot. But it is precisely what Ivan Tchakarov of Moscow-based Renaissance Capital published on Tuesday. And he has solid arguments to support his self-destructive thesis. Continue reading »

BB: time to register

Dear beyondbrics readers,

After more than three years of fully open access, we are taking the step of asking our readers to register on FT.com to read our articles. Beyondbrics will still be free but we'd like to know a bit more about you, our readers. Other FT blogs (including Alphaville) already do the same thing. Registration is active on beyondbrics from May 6.

Many of you are already registered on FT.com, or are subscribers - in which case, if you are logged in to the site you will not notice any difference. Just carry on as before.

For those of you not yet registered, it's a simple process which only takes a few moments.

Reading beyondbrics articles will NOT deduct from your free monthly quota of stories on FT.com.

Many thanks

Stefan Wagstyl, emerging markets editor

Global equities macromap

beyondbrics

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